Saturday
December 20, 1997

Vote closes Wake dump

Opponents hope the decision to halt the building of a radioactive-waste landfill in Wake County will put an end to the project for good.

By JAMES ELI SHIFFER, Staff Writer

     RALEIGH -- After spending 10 years and more than $100 million to build a radioactive waste landfill in Wake County, a state panel voted Friday to shut the project down.
     The unanimous vote by the N.C. Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority came three weeks after its funding was cut off. While authority members said they hoped to rescue the controversial project, the vote boosted the hopes of opponents who said the latest impasse might mean the end of a dump they have fought for years.
     As a result of the vote, workers will start archiving records, removing equipment and eventually closing up wells at the site, which has cost North Carolina taxpayers $40 million.
     "I have to be happy about the motion," Jim Warren, a dump opponent and director of the nonprofit N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, told the authority at its meeting at N.C. State University's McKimmon Center. "But this process is not over."
     Indeed, the authority also voted to continue paying contractors to finish some paperwork for state environmental regulators in case the funding crisis is resolved. Members agreed to pay a total of $519,000 to close down the site over the next two months, although they said they hope to find a way to revive it.
     "I suggest we put the legal and finance committees together to try to find us some money, any way we can," authority member Bob Heater said.
     Over the past 10 years, the project has stalled repeatedly because of funding disputes and safety questions. Despite millions spent on consultants' fees and state studies, state environmental regulators continue to question whether the site's complex underground fractures make it safe for housing radioactive waste.
     The waste site's future has been in doubt since Dec. 1, when a coalition of Southeastern states cut off funds because Gov. Jim Hunt rejected a long-term financing plan for the dump. The plan called for a group of power companies to lend the state $7 million, which would be paid back after the dump started operating.
     But Hunt and the authority said the deal was unfair to North Carolina, which they said had already paid its share. The conflict has left the Southeast Compact Commission and the state blaming each other and talking about potential lawsuits.
     Before the vote, the authority met for more than an hour behind closed doors to discuss how to respond to the compact's position.
     "We have no alternative" to shutting down the process, said Warren Corgan, the authority chairman. "The Southeast Compact Commission stopped the funding for reasons that have nothing to do with the technical aspects."
     Kathryn Haynes, the compact's executive director, said after the meeting that North Carolina is responsible for the dump's quandary.
     "They have a responsibility to build the site and they haven't built it," she said. Haynes blamed Hunt for refusing to accept the $7 million loan.
     Concessions from the compact, the governor or the General Assembly could restart the project, but so far no one has come forward with a new compromise. While the authority wants to meet with the legislators, most of the Triangle's legislative delegation has already spoken out against the project.
     The shutdown is the second in the dump's history and the latest sign of distress for the 17-year-old system of regional waste compacts. In 1980, Congress ordered landfills built in nine regions in the United States, but not one has been constructed.
     Opponents point out that the amount of radioactive waste produced by power companies, industries and laboratories has dropped dramatically in recent years, leading them to question whether any new facilities are necessary.
     Gerald Drake, who told the authority he represents Physicians for Social Responsibility, said the authority should end its fixation on building a dump for the Southeast's toxic trash.
     "It's time to put the Wake site on hold and rethink the radioactive waste issue," Drake said.